[RD] Why Men Need to be Involved in the #MeToo Movement

[Broken_Erika]

It seems this has all come from a misunderstanding, Lex never said that Islam is a force for progress in 2018 but rather that it was relatively progressive towards women and children for the 7th century CE.

In those days, knowing how to read would get you burned at the stake in nearly all "Christian" nations.

 

[red_elk]

In those days, knowing how to read would get you burned at the stake in nearly all "Christian" nations.

Fair point, though you missed by about a thousand years

 

[NovaKart]

Another thing, some people have mentioned suing for libel. I believe it's much more difficult to successfully sue someone for libel in the U.S., which I think is somewhat at the center of the 'me too' movement.

 

[stinkubus]

Truth is an absolute defense against libel. It's more likely the aggrieved parties have to fear what will come out during the discovery phase.

 

[sophie]

In those days, knowing how to read would get you burned at the stake in nearly all "Christian" nations.

My post got deleted somehow. But this is absolutely wrong. It's actually really disappointing how pernicious this myth is.

 

[Mouthwash]

Okay, good luck trying to get people to agree with that. Know that if you succeed I and many others will resist violently.

At least you've gotten your Stalinism out in the open and don't have to pretend anymore.

Like anything else, if you want it you work for it, and there's nothing fundamental to the nature of reality that requires it to be "fair".

You hear that, poor people?

If you're going to start talking about "honor" or "waiting for marriage" there's going to need to be evidence based reasoning for such policy that to my knowledge does not exist.

Tradition has a far better track record than 'evidence' based policies.

Nobody who looks at the present state of marriages with a dose of reality should be assigning that any credibility though...marriage is a farce in today's world. An awkward, selectively legally binding contract held over from times when they really were more like arranged business contracts than purely "love".

Among liberals, this is true. Among religious conservatives, I've seen that their marriages produce happier, healthier and more stable relationships. The problem with liberals is that they decry the bad results of traditional morality - women locked into marriages with abusive spouses, public abuse for immorality, etc, but they ignore the broken families, loneliness and depression that liberal society produces.

You can reject it all you want. It's not your choice to make. You don't get a say in other people's sexual choices. You don't have the right.

That's correct. It's not my place to make the world conform to my ideals. Liberals tend to be satisfied with that, since they believe the world is on an inevitable trend in their direction, but I think you'll react differently if traditional sexual ethics become popular among youth.

Do you think this is new? People have always had sex outside of wedlock.

Heh, well, powerful men have always sexually harassed women, so I guess it's futile to try and change anything.

If I like a woman, I don't want her to be socially pressured to have sex with me, if she doesn't want it. It will make her miserable.

I want her to be socially pressured to either marry you or leave you, not to bone you.

I have never mocked a non-feminist in that way.

Good for you!

Don't people date, go steady, get engaged, and marry anymore?

It's an empty tradition in liberal America. There's nothing else to fill the void of ritual.

What do you mean by "no alone time with other women at social gatherings"?

If I'm married, I don't want to be chatting up other women or developing a bond with them.

Treated differently in what way?

I don't know, I'm not legislating here. All I'm pointing out is that formalized relationships should have legal consequences.

The introduction of Islamic law gave women status and rights they mostly had not enjoyed previously. It varied from place to place of course just as it does today, but in pre-Islamic Arabia women were generally treated worse than they were under Islam. Islamic law gave women rights to property, inheritance, divorce, which they were denied in the Christian West until centuries later.

Shariah law did remove a lot of the arbitrariness in how women were treated. I'm not saying it wasn't a step up from paganism, but it never fundamentally altered how sex and women were viewed, as Christianity did.

Fundamentalist interpretations of the Quran have always existed, but they became particularly widespread in the modern period as various parts of the Islamic world faced the crisis of Western encroachment bringing with it all the problems of modernity. It's these fundamentalist interpretations that have led to the worst consequences for women.

That's like saying Nazism had worse consequences for Jews than Bolshevism. Technically true, but I don't think many Bolsheviks celebrated Simchat Torah.

A useful thing to remember in these discussions is that essentialist definitions of religion are never particularly useful when looking at the actual history of the religion. The way that Islam was, and is, actually practiced, varied greatly depending on time and place, how Islam entered a region (whether through direct conquest or the work of missionaries), how Islam interacted with local custom and culture, etc, etc.

But the point is that Islam has never uprooted the tribal mentality, only formalized and moderated it to some degree.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If I'm married, I don't want to be chatting up other women or developing a bond with them.

Please tell me you're not one of the people who think it's impossible for non-mutually committed men and women to have a conversation that doesn't include sex or romance.

If I go to a convention and get into a conversation with a man who I know is married or committed to a girlfriend, our conversation is not going to include sex/romance (at least not on my part and if he brings it up I will shut it down - that's long been one of MY personal commandments: "I shall not knowingly intrude on another committed couple's relationship."

In other words, conversations about books, movies, the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (it has actually come up in a couple of conversations over the years), filk music, etc. is totally fine. Conversations about domestic/relationship stuff is not.

If any "bond" comes from such conversations, I would hope it would be casual friendship, and nothing more, and hopefully the female half of their relationship understands that for me a conversation about Star Trek is a conversation about Star Trek (or whatever the topic is). It's nothing more than that, and I have no designs on "her man."

 

[Mouthwash]

Please tell me you're not one of the people who think it's impossible for non-mutually committed men and women to have a conversation that doesn't include sex or romance.

I do not think that.

If I go to a convention and get into a conversation with a man who I know is married or committed to a girlfriend, our conversation is not going to include sex/romance (at least not on my part and if he brings it up I will shut it down - that's long been one of MY personal commandments: "I shall not knowingly intrude on another committed couple's relationship."

In other words, conversations about books, movies, the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (it has actually come up in a couple of conversations over the years), filk music, etc. is totally fine. Conversations about domestic/relationship stuff is not.

If any "bond" comes from such conversations, I would hope it would be casual friendship, and nothing more, and hopefully the female half of their relationship understands that for me a conversation about Star Trek is a conversation about Star Trek (or whatever the topic is). It's nothing more than that, and I have no designs on "her man."

I don't like the idea of having a personal relationship with a woman outside of marriage. Feelings aren't something you can control. Maybe me and my wife have a fight over finances or something. Maybe I'm feeling depressed and alone. Maybe some time with my platonic lady friend would cheer me up.

No one says that it's rational for dieters to surround themselves with cakes and cookies and depend solely on rational discretion to resist the temptation to eat. Are emotional needs any less powerful?

 

[Lexicus]

At least you've gotten your Stalinism out in the open and don't have to pretend anymore.

Dude, what you described is basically the Handmaid's Tale. You think anyone who doesn't want the Handmaid's Tale to be reality is a Stalinist?

 

[inthesomeday]

Stalinism is when you oppose hierarchy and authority

 

[Lexicus]

Stalinism is when you oppose hierarchy and authority

I mean, I don't think you have to oppose all hierarchy and authority to oppose a society in which institutionalized mass rape is a thing.

 

[inthesomeday]

I mean, I don't think you have to oppose all hierarchy and authority to oppose a society in which institutionalized mass rape is a thing.

Actually to be fair as far as huge superpowers and their militaries go I think Stalin’s USSR has been the only one in history to actual take some effort to punish its soldiers for their wartime rape. So maybe that’s what he’s referring to.

 

[Yeekim]

Actually to be fair as far as huge superpowers and their militaries go I think Stalin’s USSR has been the only one in history to actual take some effort to punish its soldiers for their wartime rape. So maybe that’s what he’s referring to.

 

[Lexicus]

Actually to be fair as far as huge superpowers and their militaries go I think Stalin’s USSR has been the only one in history to actual take some effort to punish its soldiers for their wartime rape. So maybe that’s what he’s referring to.

Uh, are you kidding? The Red Army committed mass rape of German women (estimates range as high as two million) and this was allowed by high command, and only curbed where it appeared to corrode military discipline. Rape was also endemic within the Soviet armed forces themselves as women were frequently used as sexual playthings by officers and men alike.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that rape was uniquely a problem with the Red Army. But the idea that Stalin's USSR was somehow "progressive" on this issue is just laughable tankie nonsense.

 

[inthesomeday]

The Soviets executed more of their rapists than the Americans did, is what I meant. You’re right it was probably because of immoral reasons but I’m just trying to make some sense of what Mouthwash could possibly be referring to calling opposition to rape Stalinist.

 

[stinkubus]

Mouthwash posts are like a koan. They aren't supposed to make sense.

 

[Lexicus]

The Soviets executed more of their rapists than the Americans did, is what I meant. You’re right it was probably because of immoral reasons but I’m just trying to make some sense of what Mouthwash could possibly be referring to calling opposition to rape Stalinist.

Well, the Red Army executed way more people in general than the Americans or British did, among other things for having PTSD.

Also I think it was the phrase "violently resist" that caused the Stalinist reference, though I could be wrong.

 

[Synobun]

At least you've gotten your Stalinism out in the open and don't have to pretend anymore.

I don't believe being opposed to a society where women are indoctrinated to be sexually servile is a uniquely Stalinist position to take. I feel most reasonable people across differing belief systems would agree with such an opposition. That you justify this society by arguing that the indoctrination will be good enough that the women will like it isn't compelling, but I don't think we need to pay much attention to this part since you already openly admitted to basing it off of the Manson Family which is a position that can be freely dismissed.

 

[Mouthwash]

Dude, what you described is basically the Handmaid's Tale. You think anyone who doesn't want the Handmaid's Tale to be reality is a Stalinist?

I have no desire for traditional sexual ethics to be encoded or enforced by the state. So it seemed like you were advocating violence against religious communities (many of which, like Haredim and Baptists, exist in liberal countries today).

I don't believe being opposed to a society where women are indoctrinated to be sexually servile is a uniquely Stalinist position to take.

Did you miss the 'violence' part?

I feel most reasonable people across differing belief systems would agree with such an opposition. That you justify this society by arguing that the indoctrination will be good enough that the women will like it isn't compelling,

How is liberalism any less of an indoctrination? It makes its own claims regarding teleology and human nature, which have never been advocated by any society in history. How do you know it won't be dismissed by future historians as just another Gnostic movement?

but I don't think we need to pay much attention to this part since you already openly admitted to basing it off of the Manson Family which is a position that can be freely dismissed.

Any movement that tries to build a community separate from liberal society can be likened to a cult, since it will necessarily adopt a similar structure. You could just as easily call the Amish 'Charles Manson without the murder.'

 

[Lexicus]

I have no desire for traditional sexual ethics to be encoded or enforced by the state. So it seemed like you were advocating violence against religious communities (many of which, like Haredim and Amish, exist in liberal countries today).

No, I don't advocate violence against religious communities. I advocate violent resistance to the type of social system you said you wanted to set up, in which women are the sexual playthings of men and are brainwashed to like it.